Look How Ridiculous The New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Movies Look Without CGI

It's truly incredible what they can do with film today, especially with the advancement of visual effects and motion graphics. When I first heard they were remaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I was incredibly sad; all those years growing up watching the original live action films featuring the puppets crafted by Jim Henson's. It was brilliant and really well done for a movie of its time. Then came the almost 100% CGI filled epic by Michael Bay himself, yet it works and it's fun. 

Back in action are Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows," featuring fairly new actors Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, and Alan Ritchson as they bring to life the characters I grew up loving in comics, cartoons, and film. Being able to see it blast back into the blockbuster slock at the theaters has been fun, and I am pretty excited to check out this latest outing, even if it's to get the chance to see how far they can push the animation of each character. Check out the behind the scenes photos and video below before hitting the theaters this weekend, and let me know what you think in the comments below. Would love to hear your thoughts on the remake and also the use of CGI to bring back classic movies like this. 

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Andrew Griswold is a photographer and designer based in Indianapolis. Born and raised in Indy he has made a name for himself by staying very active in the creative community in both photography and design. He has also founded a community of photographers via Instagram connecting them with brands to work with and shoot locally.

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9 Comments

Thought it looked pretty ridiculous with the CGI too...

Get some 3D software (blender is free and VERY capable), and try to model something then talk about how ridiculous any CG work looks

Geeze people take things so seriously!
I wrapped shooting a Sci-Fi feature a couple months ago and we're neck deep in post, going back and forth with the animators I know exactly what the process is. Unlike most cinematographers still to this day and even in huge budgeted films I am very present in the animation/VFX process as opposed to handing a bunch of footage and expecting them to create the look the director and I was going for.
I have enormous respect for the animators today-my sister is one of them. With the insane long hours for surprisingly little pay, only to be motivated by their passion to create.

I retract my initial statement, and respect your right to say it looks ridiculous, but what is it, exactly, that you think is ridiculous?

Pretty much what Pete Miller said. Sure these TMNT movies were fun to watch, but I prefer the look of the original man in the suit ones where it was real.

Sure cgi is absolutely amazing now, but instead of being a way to fully immerse the audience into the director's vision and to help tell the story, cgi seems to take precidense over the story. We've seen so many over the top cgi shots that nothing really dazzles us, it's just too overdone instead of doing it right and getting as much done in camera (which Michael Bay does do and I'll give him credit on that).

A prime example of cgi/vfx done right is watch any recent David Fincher film (Gone Girl or The Girl with the Dragoon Tatoo especially), he uses so much green screen and cgi that I can't even tell what was done in post. He's a filmmaker who uses cgi the way it was meant to be and uses it so seamlessly that it's not a distraction which takes away from the film like what we see elsewhere. My initial comment was the current state of the industry is as a whole.

Alright I totally get you there. Thumbs up

Thumbs up for beating me to that comment :-)

You obviously have no idea how hard it is to work in the movie industry. If you did you wouldn't call it ridiculous.

It's a Michael Bay movie so one thing's for certain; any semblance of a plot will quickly give way to a crapfest of cgi and explosions.